"I hate 'em. The whole damn logging industry should come down with a rare form
of cancer. ... They're murdering. They've got a plan. They're not even
wasting their time with the second growth. They've got that. They want to
have all the old growth cut before anybody can stop 'em. They're ignorant, and
they've got to learn a different way of life," declared wilderness photographer
Art Wolfe in the August Backpacker magazine.

A recent illustration in Defenders magazine shows a Forest Service ranger battling with his
conscience--a cartoon angel on one shoulder and devil on the other. Only this
point-tailed devil is wearing a plaid shirt and calk boots. Clutched in one
hand, a pitch fork--in the other, a chain saw.

Vilification of loggers is widespread. Protests range from radical "tree
spiking" by groups such as Earth First! to editorial cartoons and commentaries
found in the mainstream media.

"Loggers are characterized as primitive, overweight, beer-drinking,
not-so-intelligent laborers with little regard for the future," notes Robert
Lee, professor with the UW College of Forest Resources.
"Such stereotyping is a classic form of blaming the victim. It dehumanizes
people and justifies actions to remove them from their jobs and the land.

"After all, they are considered 'bad people' who deserve to suffer."

These feelings are turning white-hot as the debate about preserving old-growth
forests heats up. Earlier this year, an interagency scientific committee
appointed by the federal government issued what is known as the Jack Ward Thomas report. That
report said millions of acres now open to logging in Washington, Oregon and
northern California--much of it old growth--must be preserved if the spotted
owl is to survive. The owl was listed as a threatened species June 22,
requiring the government to take steps to protect it.

A government report estimated that 28,000 jobs could be lost in the region.
Timber industry estimates have ranged from 102,000 to 150,000. Whatever the
actual totals, the disruption in human lives and the social and political costs
of softening the blow can be substantially reduced--if there is a
greater sensitivity to how people are affected, Lee says. Unfortunately, just
the opposite appears to be happening.

Contrast this to the outpouring of feeling for family farmers when an economic
buzz saw hit them in the early '80s. No rock bands are planning concerts to
raise money to help timber workers through their rough times. But there was
Farm Aid for the family farmers. Jessica Lange and Sam Shepherd haven't signed
a movie deal to portray a hard-pressed logging family, reprising roles similar
to the farm family in Country.

Bill Heffernan, professor of rural sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, says he
was struck by similarities between what he's studied in the Midwest and what
Lee showed him last year on the Olympic
Peninsula. "Cases of individual depression can lead to a collective
feeling of hopelessness. Whole towns give up."

One difference he saw is in the level of public support. Surveys showed a
majority of Americans--both rural and urban--would pay a little more for food
in order to save family farms. "Even the hardest-nosed economists, the ones who
said we had too many farms and some would have to go out of business, thought
we should help them through the transition," Heffernan said. "That doesn't
seem to be true for loggers."

He speculates feelings are stronger for family farms because many American have
grandparents, other relatives or friends who are still connected to farming.
Few have ties to logging towns.

If they did, they'd find logging is distinguished by an unusual commitment to
individualism, hard work, inventiveness and entrepreneurial spirit, Professor
Lee has found in 10 years of research. Trained as a sociologist, Lee is one of
only three North American researchers to conduct in-depth studies of the people
who live in timber communities. His work goes beyond typical opinion polls.
Instead, selected individuals are carefully questioned about their views.

In his studies, Lee has found that most logging firms are owned by independent
entrepreneurs. They were started by loggers who slowly accumulated enough
equipment to open their own businesses. Employees of these firms share in the
commitment to hard work and independence, and many aspire to eventually have a
"show" of their own.

Loggers acquire job security by developing a personal reputation as a "good
logger," Lee says. A good logger is versatile, and can set chokers, trim logs
and operate and repair heavy equipment. In the past, jobs could come and go,
but loggers could always count on their reputations to find work.
Identification as a logger is generally so firmly embedded that people cannot
imagine doing anything else, he says.

These people see themselves as tough, resilient and proud--and compare
themselves to those who built America. That's why they are particularly
threatened by the wave of public sentiment washing over them. It goes beyond
differences of opinion about how much old growth is left and how much should be
cut. The threat is against loggers themselves, as if they violate some natural
law every time they fire up their chain saws.

Although lacking the mystique of logging, owners and workers in small sawmills
also share the values of hard work, independence and risk taking. These are
the mills which will be hard hit by sudden reductions in planned harvests on
public lands.

Somewhat a breed apart are workers at medium and large-sized sawmills owned by
large companies and corporations, says Lee. These workers experience little
control over the work environment. As a result there is a long history of
unionization among sawmill workers and much more conflict between management
and labor than is found in logging. Because of these differences and others,
Lee cautions against assuming loggers would be eager to take sawmill jobs if
they became available.

"By nature loggers are among the most adaptable and independent people,"
according to Bill Hermann of Hermann Brothers Logging & Construction in
Port Angeles. "My machine operators could go to any construction site in
Seattle or some other big city and do the job better than most of the guys
there. The mechanics would be welcome in any welding shop. I just ran into a
guy out here who said a Seattle container shipping firm was willing to pay him
a $100 finders fee for every trucker he could convince to take a job with them
in Seattle.

"But they don't want to leave."

Suggesting that timber workers relocate to urban areas where jobs are more
plentiful ignores the fact that residents have businesses they don't want to
close, homes which are likely to plummet in value, friends and relatives they
don't want to leave and strong attachments to rural living, Lee warns.

Hermann grew up on the family farm between Sequim and Port Angeles and the land
remains his home and the headquarters for the business he started 25 years ago
with his two brothers. Over those 25 years, the firm has had only two logging
crews in old growth for three years. The balance of the time, all four of the
crews have been in various second-growth stands, logging trees that were
planted or regrew naturally after being harvested in the last 100 years.

Hermann, who just got back from visiting lawmakers in Washington, D.C., said
people in other parts of the country think Pacific Northwest loggers harvest
only old growth. They've heard that all the old growth will be gone in 10
years so they assume the industry will die, he said. There is the perception
that the last tree is about to fall.

Lee has heard this too. People equate loggers with buffalo hunters who wiped
out their own livelihood by decimating the resource. The analogy is incorrect
and springs from the myth that the Pacific Northwest is being deforested.
Actually there are lots of trees, across all age classes, on private and public
lands, says Lee. There are no serious shortages except for the segments of the
industry which depend heavily on timber from the public lands.

Lee cautions people against losing sight of the causes behind this current
crisis: differing opinions about cutting old growth and hatred of the
"industrial landscape."

Clearcuts bother the general public, whether the trees harvested are 60 years
old or 200. Those living on the Olympic Peninsula talk of seeing carloads of
tourists pulling over to snap photos of clearcuts--indignation plain on the
visitors' faces. What the public doesn't realize is that state laws require
clearcuts be replanted within three years. In addition, Lee explains,
clearcutting is the fastest way to grow a forest of Douglas fir and the only
way to harvest without building more roads. "Roads damage the environment more
than a clearcut does," he adds.

"Environmentally sensitive consumers from urban areas often view logging as a
destructive occupation," Lee said. "Many find a sense of justice in thinking
the occupation is on the decline. It's seen as a positive sign that the world
is evolving toward a higher level of environmental sensitivity.

"The conflict between these two cultures has rigidified to a point where a
severe political schism is growing between a class of rural producers and a
class of urban consumers." This clash is not new but we're seeing it full
force for the first time, Lee says.

The conflict is a result of the transition from a manufacturing society to an
information-based, technological society. Urban consumers have little awareness
of where wood-based products come from or how and why they are produced. Only
two percent of the population remains in what Lee calls the "extractive"
occupations such as mining, agriculture and logging.

"What I hate is that urbanites refuse to recognize their role in this,"
according to Ann Goos of Forks, owner of an education consulting business and
wife of a logger. "Why would these loggers work so hard and put their lives on
the line to harvest trees if no one wanted them? There's a timber industry
because there's a demand for the products."

Goos describes campaigning for the state legislature in a Sequim neighborhood
of $350,000 homes. At one house, a new arrival to the peninsula told Goos he'd
never vote for her because she favored logging and that would forfeit his son's
right to a decent environment.

"I couldn't help noticing that his home was built on a clear-cut and the
fine-grained wood of his house--although it probably didn't come from old
growth--was still from ... trees that were harvested by men like my husband."

Lee says urban consumers don't want to think about how we get our meat,
potatoes and wood. "We have created a separate class of people in our minds--a
moral caste of individuals who are less than we are because of what they do."

Further clouding the issue is a growing number of preservationists who
interpret trees as icons of biological continuity, almost symbols of
immortality, Lee says. They are meeting with success in a nation where
citizens are frightened about global warming, depletion of the ozone layer and
other environmental problems.

It's comforting to think these problems are solvable if only we save trees, Lee
says. Never mind how forest ecosystems actually work or that it would be most
effective to tackle the sources of pollution head on--such as driving our cars
less. Some find it far easier to point the environmental finger of shame at
loggers.

Timber workers are feeling even more alienated from their government. They
lost trust in government when sudden timber harvest reductions were imposed,
Lee said.

"The federal government deliberately encouraged the development of local wood
product industries throughout the West, guaranteed continuous wood supplies and
stimulated the formation of timber communities to provide a permanent home for
these industries," Lee says. "People bought homes, invested capital and formed
attachments to communities because of the government's promise of sustained
yield wood production."

Bert Paul, owner of the Thrifty Mart in Forks, was
raised on the Olympic Peninsula until college and his retailing career took him
from the area. He was working for Sears when he decided to return to his home
town.

"I would never have bought the business or taken a lease on the building
without first asking about harvest schedules for the next 10 years on federal
and state forests," Paul says. What he saw looked promising so he bought the
business.

He became involved in the chamber of commerce, other civic groups and
eventually served on the state's Commission on Old Growth Alternatives for
Washington Forest Trust Lands. The 33-member panel was created to advise the
state on managing old-growth resources on state-owned lands on the Olympic
Peninsula.

Among other things, the commission recommended deferring the harvest on 15,000
acres of especially critical spotted owl habitat for 15 years while information
is gathered on how best to manage those areas. It also urged establishing an
experimental forest and research center to explore new ways to produce timber
harvests, analyze ecological values, and help communities with economic
development.

There is little community input concerning federal spotted owl measures.
Decisions from Washington, D.C., have negated agreements reached by the
old-growth commission and other local bodies.

"All these factors are causing timber workers to feel frustrated and
abandoned," Lee said. "Policy makers and interest groups are overestimating
these people's capability and willingness to adapt. Because of this, not
enough money is being allocated for social services and thinking has been too
limited as far as job and social assistance."

Washington state's early estimates for the costs of social services are far too
conservative, according to Lee. Last fall, Olympia was estimating 18,000 jobs
would be lost by 1991 and saying extra social service costs will peak at $16
million a year. Lee points out that the 1991 total translates to just $888 per
laid-off worker. Most of those workers have families who will need medical,
mental health and emergency income assistance.

The toll on individuals and families in these communities is already causing
increased depression, family violence, substance abuse and even suicide,
according to what social workers and individuals have told Lee. Lee estimates
the extra social service demands could cost $150 million annually for affected
areas in Washington, Oregon and northern California.

The price tag for social services does not include unemployment benefits or job
assistance. Lawmakers may be making decisions based on simplistic data, the
forestry professor warns. "It's doubtful that adjustment assistance in the
form of extended unemployment benefits, retraining, education, temporary
mortgage supplements and relocation assistance will be enough," Lee has said in
testimony to Congress and state legislatures. This situation is not like a
typical business downturn which these communities have faced in the past. Nor
are the changes being phased in over a number of years--this is an abrupt and
permanent reduction in timber harvests, he explains.

A bigger public commitment is required--perhaps for as long as a decade--and
more innovation is needed to foster new industries that will generate tax
revenues in timber towns, not unemployment and welfare demands.

Without help, pockets of rural poverty will develop, Lee says. People who
choose to remain may adapt by using local resources for subsistence such as
poaching fish and game, may exchange services, rely on intermittent wage labor,
or engage in illegal enterprises. He points to the rural culture of southwest
Oregon and northwest California, with its reliance on growing marijuana, as an
example of what can happen to some locations when wood products economies
decline.

Such rural poverty does not provide a setting conducive to tourism or
alternative industries, and it makes it difficult to launch government
conservation programs.

Lee takes care in his testimony before lawmakers to say that he is not arguing
for or against protecting old-growth forests. He is disgruntled by those who
use his work as a reason to forestall any and all conservation measures.
Instead, he talks about the costs of national decisions being borne by all
citizens and says empathy for timber workers would greatly ease the
transition.

Many of these workers see themselves as the kind of people who founded this
country and represent its values. To them, politicians and environmentalists
appear intent on tearing up their version of America by its roots.

Sandra Hines is a writer for the UW Office of Information Services who
specializes in fisheries, forestry and oceanography. She is a 1976 graduate of
the WSU School of Communications.